Becky McClements

As the sun goes down, the colors around the mountain emerge. The roas gleams burnt orange against the array of greens that blossom up the hillside. Yes, the houses blend in with the brown of the brush but the flowers bloom brilliant reds and oranges….

The Islam I see is not the one they said I would see. It is joyous dancing that shakes the ground you walk on. It is singing while you weep for the loss of a loved one. It is quietly washing yourself and laying down a mat…

Expectations more often or not lead to disappointment for they are usually based on external circumstances out of our control. At some point during fall training I decided to relinquish all my expectations for the year to come to save myself from disappointment. That is, I thought I had…

Written November 3, 2012: It’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m escaping the unfathomably hot sun with my host dad in the shade of the mango tree in our compound. One of our neighbors, an incredibly goofy woman with a great sense of humor and dance moves to boot…

I’m no stranger to sweat; I practically grew up dosed in it. From doing triathlons in the scorching summer sun to muck stalls and lifting bails of hay in the horribly humid air, I’m used to having every part of me drenched with beads of salty water. That…

I have known for a while now that I wanted to take a year off between high school and college to do some kind of service, but as the end of this school year approached I had no idea exactly what I wanted to do…